poems. one of my closest friends and i have been chatting about how its hard for us to compliment ourselves. self love can seem vain, tiresome even, and i’ve come to the realization that there is a fine line between the pride that goes with feeding disobedience to the Father versus loving yourself as the being He created just to save.
the following is a poem i wrote in attempt to flatter myself in the least bit as well as confront another pressing issue- my status when it comes to dating relationships and marriage. it’s a hard knock life for those who are single, and it’s a tough pill to swallow to simply reply, with that half hearted smile, “oh, but all in God’s timing.” Reader, they’re the truest words, but sometimes we can say them as the biggest lie.
briefly on mahogany eyes: it’s a color I’ve dubbed my own in attempts to shift away from my adolescent hatred of my deep brown eyes. the most common color, it seems foolish to shame them as if they’re some rare monstrous feature. normal people would dub them chocolate, but i hate the stuff, so i decided on the wood instead. a reddish brown, in all of my written works, the character i bestow with mahogany eyes is often the one i see as myself.
mahogany eyes
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When you’re lost and longing for me
Look for the one with the mahogany eyes.
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With irises so deep
They seem to be a hundred tree rings wide
Around solid black holes
That observe only those most tender parts
Of your smile, your face, your one crooked tooth
Your wayward spine dancing in the moon
They trace every piece
Of your gentle, kind flesh
And you’d think that they’d seen
A million years and leaves and means go by
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But despite those few tender years
A body not yet ravaged by age
They might coax you not to be afraid
When they lock on yours
Whatever color they may be
Remind yourself you can always be free.
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Mahogany eyes she thinks have been
Touched by the Father
With creative vision like only He’d know
You’ve seen that same glimpse
In your crystal clear young corneas
Of dreams both waking and sleep
In which you could seize the whole globe
In your still child soft hands
And the world is simply for your taking.
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When you peer into those red-brown irises
The color of the neighbor’s honey only in that one ripe week of fall
When the sun so delicately illuminates
Do you see a million more worlds?
All ready for you to enter them
Or to invent upon scratching, screeching pen
Do you see adventure? Or maybe a sweet tiny spin-
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She’s the springtime nymph of the forest,
The sprite that only some have known.
There’s flowers in that mane
And yet, no one can tame-
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Far from perfect, you’d love her still
Even if she’s sometimes ill
With defeat, regret
A temper hot as forest fires under the sun
You’d fight, raise your tone, and somehow try to find-
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Those still gleaming eyes of mahogany prize
Tears, both sour and sweet
Redden that pure whiteness cradling the deep.
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She might stay if you ask her
Like a mighty great oak
But perhaps she’s a seed
With just barely laid roots
She’s fleeting, like the wind,
And you don’t want her to bend-
But remember, my friend
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Beauty is fleeting
Yet some things never change
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See not that they’re slain
See those trunks remaining still?
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When you’re lost in those woods
Thinking only of me
Remember those great big mahogany trees.
